Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Wilson
What planet is jon gilson from
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More fallacious nonsense, rife with straw men and ad hominem attacks.
"We engage in consistent, high-intensity exercise, and the health of our athletes speaks for itself."
This isn't unique to Crossfit. The same could be said for athletes training at Cressey Performance, or DeFranco's gym, or Dan John's students. The difference there is individual needs get addressed, and they're training for actual sports. I would also put all my money on DeFranco's 10 best athletes beating Crossfit's 10 best athletes at the games if they were given a year to prepare for them, or in a strongman comp any day of the week with no preparation, take your pick, but that's neither here nor there.
"These rock stars, ensconced in leather chairs and starched uniforms, forget that rhabdo results from an imminently predictable and wholly preventable chain of events."
Note the ad hominem attack on detractors. Crossfit critics generally aren't unfit individuals, since unfit individuals don't give a flying f*** about any training protocol, let alone Crossfit. They're generally coaches, athletes, s&c enthusiasts, etc.
As for the preventable chain of events, there is truth to this, but much of the blame still lies with Crossfit. The trainers are certified. The exercises most commonly associated with rhabdo (high rep GHSUs and PUs), are programmed by HQ, as is also the case with the SLAP tears (high rep KPUs) and ruptured achilles (high rep box jumps/depth jumps). This is ignoring the fact that these exercises don't provide anything special in terms of a "training effect." Lots of KPUs are really just a conditioning tool. You'd be just as well off doing a few rounds of 7 dead hang pull ups followed by a 100y dash or a 10-20-30 yard suicide.
Which brings me to my next point, as there's this myth from the CF crowd that rhabdo is predominantly occurring in some "elite" performers who took some time off and came back at it too hard. We have seen these cases. But we also see people getting them from jumping pull ups and crappy push ups (mostly eccentric work from lockout to the floor). You know how I know those people aren't elite athletes, or even decent athletes? Decent athletes don't do jumping pull ups. Ever. They're not so weak as to need to sub them in. They can either do a lot of dead hang pull ups, or in special cases can't but don't need them (say an offensive lineman in football or heavyweight weightlifter).
He goes on to say this recipe for rhabdo is about as "Crossfit as a lap on the Stairmaster", yet HQ
1. programs the exercises most likely to cause it
2. addresses rhabdo in its commandments for their trainers, so it's a clear risk associated with crossfit.
3. openly jokes and takes some bizarre pride in Crossfit's ability to cause this rarest of tissue breakdown, selling t-shirts endorsing it.
The whole problem, as has been repeated oftentimes, is that rhabdo, slap tears, and ruptured achilles are wholly avoidable by not programming retarded exercises in retarded rep ranges, when safer alternatives with the same training effect exist. But then it wouldn't be "Crossfit", because they didn't invent barbell complexes and running. But it'd sure be effective!
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